Anniversary
by EowynAhsokaLover
Summary: The day after his and Eren's tenth anniversary, Levi returns early from work to surprise his partner. He arrives home to an empty house. While he waits for Eren, his thoughts turn to the topic that's been concerning him since his fortieth birthday: his age.


**A/N: A modern AU in which Levi and Eren have been together for ten years. Levi is 42 and Eren is 32. I may eventually publish a series of domestic AU one-shots about their life. I hope you enjoy.**

Eren always tried his best to remember dates, even though the bouquet of flowers never seemed to appear until the day after their anniversary. Levi wouldn't actually care if Eren forgot—but the behavior was extremely cute, even after ten years.

Levi had arrived home from work early today, hoping to surprise Eren, only to find the younger man gone. Vaguely disappointed, he took off his shoes by their front mat and walked further into the apartment. He padded into their bedroom and began undressing. First, he took off his blazer and hung it up in his side oft the closet. It was followed by his cravat, his shirt, and his dress slacks. He pulled on a pair of cotton pajama pants. Briefly, he contemplated spending the rest of the evening shirtless, as he had done frequently in years past, but dismissed the idea, sliding on a loose fitting t-shirt that may or may not have once been Eren's. Levi's fortieth birthday two years ago had imparted on him the knowledge that he was getting older—and so was his body.

Levi walked over to the adjacent bathroom and turned on the light. The bathroom was small, but the shower was big enough for the two of them to enjoy together. He moved to the sink and washed his hands with hot water, careful to get under the nails, at the same time inspecting his teeth for food debris in the mirror. He turned the faucet off, but stood at the mirror a moment longer, his eyes lingering on the stray gray hairs that had started popping up on his head recently.

The front door opened and Levi heard someone shuffling inside. Once the humming started, he was sure it was Eren.

Levi walked out of the bathroom and the bedroom to the front room. He leaned against one of the walls, waiting for Eren to notice him.

"Levi!" The grocery bags Eren had been carrying clattered to the floor. "You're not supposed to be home for another hour!"

Levi shrugged and started walking toward Eren. "I thought I'd come home early today. Didn't you see my car outside?"

Eren blushed and started muttering under his breath.

Levi sighed and started picking up the dropped groceries. "Are there any more groceries in the car?"

"Yes—No! Here, let me take these!" Hr grabbed the bgs from Levi and took them over to the kitchen counter."

"Eren." The younger man didn't answer. "Eren." Levi grabbed his partner's hand. Eren's turquoise eyes looked at him. "I didn't come home early to fluster you."

Eren gave him a look.

"Okay, maybe a little, but I really came home to spend time with you, since—well, you've obviously realized what yesterday was."

Eren was still looking at him.

"Look, it's our anniversary isn't it?" he said, emphasizing the word "our". "Let me help cook dinner or something."

"Everything you touch burns."

"And every time you finish cooking, our kitchen looks like it's been attacked by a rabid bear."

Eren gave Levi another long look. Then he squeezed Levi's hand and smiled. Levi instantly relaxed. "You can bring in the rest of the groceries."

By the time Levi returned from the car, grocery bags in hand, Eren had put on an apron and had started chopping food. Levi put up the groceries and sat down at the breakfast bar to watch Eren work. "What did you do today?"

Eren answered without looking up. "Someone's ordered a giant wedding cake from the bakery. Normally we get orders for cakes to feed a couple hundred people, but she wanted one that would feed five-hundred!"

"That's good."

"Yeah!" Eren looked up at him, eyes shining. "Christa came by too with Jessica and Michael." Jessica and Michael were the kids Christa and Ymir had adopted. Levi thought they were both about five years old. "I gave them both a free cookie."

"You always give kids free cookies."

"It's pretty much policy now. But they're doing well. Then, after we closed for the day, I came home and thought about what I could do for out anniversary. I know dinner isn't much, especially for our tenth, but-"

"If it means that much to you, we can invite people over Friday night."

"Really?" Eren's eyes were wide. "But you don't like having a lot of people over at once."

"I said we could invite people over, not everyone we know. If we did that I'd be cleaning up shit for three weeks." Eren opened his mouth to say something else, but Levi interrupted him. "Eren?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember the conversation we had when uh…we moved in together?"

"Which one?"

"The one where you told me you'd like to have kids someday."

Eren had stopped working. He was looking at Levi. "Yeah," he said softly, "I do. What about it?"

"I've got a steady job," Levi was a French professor at the local university "and the bakery is doing well. It seems like a good time to maybe buy a house in a nice neighborhood—maybe where Christa and Ymir live, don't they like where they live?-and adopt."

Levi wasn't sure how he expected Eren to react, but it wasn't the solemn, worried expression Eren was wearing. He was quiet for a minute, then responded, "Are you saying this because you're old?"

"…Because I'm old?" Levi's heart rate increased. Did Eren think of him as old?

Eren looked mortified. "That's not what I meant! I meant, well, are you saying it because you think you're old?"

Thoughts were banging around his head. Levi pushed them away. He raised his eyebrows. "What's your point Yeager?"

Eren looked suddenly frightened, which Levi thought was sill. "I just…I just don't want you to get a kid for the wrong reason, because you've got some idea if you don't do it now you won't ever be able to it or that you're somehow holding me back from getting kids. Because none of those are true." Eren panted. His face was red, impassioned. "I want us to get a kid only if we both want one." The moment he finished speaking, he was back at the cutting board.

"I—" Levi closed his mouth and slid off his stool. He walked until he was behind Eren's back, then wrapped his arms around the other's torso, resting his head against Eren's back. "I want to have kids because I know how much it means to you, how happy they'd make you, how happy that would make me."

"But—"

"And even if something happened to you," the idea was terrible; Eren was only thirty-two but his mother had died from a horrible, genetic disease that Eren could have inherited, "I would still love them because they'd remind me so much of you. And because I'll probably love them for themselves as well."

"I just don't want you to do something you'll regret."

"I'm forty-two, Eren. I'm old enough to know what I want."

"Really?"

"Do you think dinner can wait?" Levi asked, although he didn't really care about the answer. His hands had already slid under Eren's apron, already found the zipper of his jeans. Eren's body was warm, comforting, and humming with energy.

"I suppose so, if you have enough energy for what we're about to do, you dirty old man."

"You realize you won't be able to joke like that when we have kids."

"No. We'll have to hire a baby-sitter so I can make jokes like that."


End file.
